


Science and Progress

by mybrotherharry



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Dubious Consent, M/M, Objectification, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Serious Consent Issues, Violent Sex, split personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 01:20:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14842857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybrotherharry/pseuds/mybrotherharry
Summary: He is so gentle, and his eyes are so kind, that for the majority of their time together, Steve remembers exactly why he was so smitten with James Buchanan Barnes. But when Bucky vanishes and the Soldier starts pacing his living room floor like he has a score to settle with it, well, Steve loves him too.Also known as the post-WS multiple personality!Bucky fic nobody wanted.





	Science and Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Serious warnings for Non-consensual/Dub-consent sexual intercourse. Steve is not right in the head, nor does he have the right frame of reference for Winter Soldier, an individual who is causing him serious emotional and physical damage. 
> 
> Warnings for rough sex, violent sex, bleeding, anal sex, tearing, dub con, non-con and serious depression.

He never knows which Bucky he will come home to.

Some days, he returns from the tower, or SHIELD, or a mission to find Bucky Barnes - his Bucky Barnes curled up on himself on the couch, a hot water bottle under his belly.

(Steve's apartment has a state of the art thermostat, but Bucky always goes to bed with hot water bottles. Sam says it is probably a consequence of spending a lifetime being cold and damp, of being in the chill for so long that the body's forgotten what warm feels like.

Steve tries not to think about that, and buys an electric blanket.)

Steve never knows which Bucky he will come home to.

If his best friend is curled on the couch under blankets and pillows, eyes drifting close and fluttering open every few minutes, shoulders slumped with the exhaustion of a lifetime, then Steve breathes a sigh of relief in the doorway.

He doesn't sit down on the couch. When Bucky is Bucky, Steve doesn't touch. He gets the feeling that he isn't allowed to, and he'd rather die than watch Bucky flinch away from him at the accidental brush of fingers.

Everything else about him is the same as Steve remembers. His dark hair is trimmed again, short and clean like he used to wear it during the war. Clean shaven, those hazel eyes dance with the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He watches reality TV like an addict, and spends his days in front of the television, keeping up a commentary about the banality of the human race under his breath.

Steve enjoys watching him enjoy himself.

When Steve returns home and finds his Bucky, those are the good days.

On other days, like today, he comes home to the Winter Soldier, standing alert on guard, skulking in the dark corners of the apartment, with all exits and windows in his sightline.

On those days, the food Steve’d left on the counter remains untouched. The television is switched off, the curtains are drawn and the house is shrouded in a cloak of darkness, deceptively protective of its secrets.

The Soldier stands like his every muscle is taut with tension, anticipating an attack. He jumps when Steve walks in, and he always, always looks at him like a predator taking stock of its prey.

Steve's never watched them switch personalities. He's always walked in on one or the other, but never seen the transition between the two. He wants to.

The Soldier touches him. The Soldier does more than touch him. The Soldier steps into his space as soon as Steve enters the apartment, presses him against the door and holds him there, eyes dancing rapidly in confused little circles, breathing rapid, grin feral.

The metal arm comes up to hold Steve's wrists together above his head and pins them against the wood. The soldier's sharp teeth bite down on his jaw, on his neck, on his collarbone, sometimes on both sides, sometimes for hours, but always, always drawing blood.

The Soldier's tongue comes out to lap at the redness, violent and giddy. Steve cannot do much other than rutting against the Soldier's thigh, pressed as it is between his legs.

"Bucky," he gasps out sometimes, and nothing enrages the Soldier more.

"I am NOT BUCKY!" he shouts in Russian, voice hoarse. "Did he do this to you, Captain? When you were his in your war - did he hurt you like I do? Did he make you bleed?"

By the time Steve falls asleep after an evening with the Soldier, he is most definitely bleeding. He is sore and hurting, hole puffy and red, fucked raw and aching so deep he feels it in his throat. Some nights, he is unconscious long before the Soldier is done with him, and his dreams are interspersed with memories of being jostled against the canopy of a tent, of moonless nights in France or Germany, of falling asleep with Bucky moving inside him, content in his arms.

 

 

The morning after a dalliance with the Soldier always starts for Steve with the smell of hot chocolate. Bucky Barnes has always been a disaster in the kitchen, but Bucky of the twenty-first century can manage hot chocolate.

The good kind, with melting cocoa in a pan with bubbling hot milk.

Steve doesn't know if Bucky is aware of the actions of the Soldier, or if the Soldier knows of the happenings when Bucky is on the surface. But, every time, on the morning after, Bucky brings him hot cocoa, sets it gingerly on Steve's bedside table and stands around looking guilty until Steve drinks it.

They have tried different variations of this routine. Once, Steve could barely move without flinching, much less sit up in bed, so he'd turned on his front, held himself up on his elbows, lifted his head enough to drink the stupid hot chocolate before collapsing into the pillows again.

Other times, Bucky strips the bed even if Steve's still on it, balling up the blood-streaked sheets and throwing them in the washer with single-minded focus, as if washing away the blood from cotton would remove traces of the bruises his metal arm left on Steve's pale skin.

Once, Bucky ran him a bath and stood around, fussing with the curtains until Steve mustered the strength to step into the water. Sometimes, he would lie down next to Steve with his head on the pillow, their bodies aligned carefully so as to not touch, heavy silence between them, broken only by Steve's raspy, painful inhales around a broken nose.

Very rarely has the Soldier stayed through the night, but on those mornings, Steve has woken up sputtering and gasping for air around a cock in his throat. They keep going for a few more hours, and the Soldier proceeds to wear him out till late afternoon, and when Steve finally makes it out of bed, the pillowcase is soaked with tears.

They never say a word, Bucky and he, on mornings after. Bucky's silence makes something heavy settle in Steve's gut, like he's been caught cheating on his lover. Bucky, in the morning after, makes him feel filthier with just a look than the Soldier who sucks his own cum out of Steve’s hole on a regular basis.

It hurts Steve that Bucky never touches him, and the Soldier only touches him to hurt him.

 

 

Sam asks him how he tells between the two of them - the Soldier, and his Bucky. Steve doesn't have an explanation. He just knows.

When Bucky is Bucky, sometimes, he would ask about their families from before the war. Steve had shown him photos of Rebecca's daughter and grandkids, leading to nearly an hour of Bucky weeping and Steve not being able to touch and comfort him.

On days like that, he's almost grateful for the Soldier's arrival, because now, he can touch. He can be broken and punished and hurt for not jumping after Bucky Barnes from that train. On days like that, he pushes the Soldier's buttons, to make him angry, to be taken apart till he can't breathe through the pain, till he screams and screams and the Soldier shuts him up with his cock.

Steve very carefully does not mention this to Sam. It is the last thing he wants to tell ANYONE, much less a therapist.

He keeps waiting for it to turn into gentle love making. For the soldier to hold him like Bucky used to, when the rest of the Commandos would give them privacy without being overly obvious about it, when Bucky would take his time, playing, toying, stroking, fingering..

Bucky used to spend hours just making Steve fall apart.

Then, after an eternity, after getting Steve to the point of sobbing and incoherent begging, Bucky would finally, finally, get inside him, at a snail’s pace, holding on tight, and clawing his way into Steve like he had all the time in the world. Most often, they didn’t have all the time in the world. But they used to make do.

These days, the fucking has no prelude, no foreword. It’s the single and final act of everything they do together. The Soldier climbs into Steve like he has no business being without the tight clutch of Steve’s body.

While being jostled against the kitchen counter, or being yanked around by the hair up against the bathroom wall, Steve almost believes the Soldier might love him a little.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, Natasha is the first to notice.

Steve didn’t imagine he would be able to keep their situation a secret on a team of spies and demi-gods and secret agents, but he did wish for more time.

It happens on the day of the tanks. There is an honest to God tank plodding its way through midtown, and the Soldier is balls deep in Steve when the alarm sounds from his phone.

“I gotta - go, Buck, come on, let go - Bucky!”

Referring to the Soldier as Bucky on the best of times is a violence inducing act of foolishness, and Steve realizes his mistake only after the Soldier breaks his nose by bashing his head against the bedroom wall.

“Dammit Bucky!”

He ducks out of the way, just as the Soldier pounces to pin him in place. They are pretty evenly matched in strength, a fact that’s tampered the clawing panic and fear Steve has felt during every single one of their shared trysts, the knowledge that he can get out if he needs to. Steve had never imagined he’d need such a safety net with Bucky.

He is not Bucky. Steve tries very hard to remember that.

Mustering on every bit of strength Dr. Erskine infused into him, Steve grabs the soldier by the waist and throws him bodily to the other side of the room.  
“Get your act together,” he snarls at him. “I’ve got a day job. I gotta go. You can fuck me all you want when I’m back.”

Pulling on the tights over abused skin is one of the more painful experiences of his life. His knuckles, as his fingers wrap around the strap of the shield, are bruised and red. He is pretty sure he is leaking, wet and puffy and sore, and his broken nose isn’t helping with driving the bike.

It’s like the Soldier is locked in a battle of wills with Steve’s accelerated healing.

In the field, Steve is sluggish and moving slowly, something that his team notices but doesn’t comment on. The alien tank seems to be moving without a controller, or at least, Tony can’t pinpoint a signal or command center.

“We cannot hold the perimeter for much longer,” Clint grunts on the comm. “Coulson is reporting three other tanks two blocks down. What’s our play, Cap?”

Silence.

“Cap?”

Another minute of panicked, pained breathing.

“Steve, status, now,” comes Coulson’s perennially calm voice over the comms, and Steve can’t do much more than try to control his breathing.

“I have eyes on him,” Widow says. “He’s fine. Coulson, push the perimeter out another two blocks. Thor has eyes up above. Stark, get Clint somewhere high up on the edge. Steve and I have got feet on the ground to evacuate civilians.”

Silently, his team rearranges itself, obeying Natasha, even though their worried silence conveys enough.

Later, much later, Natasha settles into the pilot seat beside him. Steve is biting his lower lip just to be able to breathe without his ribs feeling like they’re on fire, but she’s training him in piloting. He must co-pilot with her; he would rather face a half an hour of being in pain rather than be the pupil who slacks off under Natasha Romanov’s tutelage.

When she pulls on the headset and allows him to ease the plane off the ground, he notices that the rest of the team has conspicuously made itself scarce, or at least, placed themselves purposefully out of earshot. Tony is bending over Bruce, who is slouched on one of the benches running along the side of the plane, wrapped in blankets. Clint and Phil are hovering, Coulson standing between Clint’s legs and pressing a cold compress to his head. It feels very private, and sends a painful throb through Steve, so he looks away quickly and turns back to flight controls.

Through it all, Natasha is staring at him, her eyes clear.

“What happened to your nose?” she asks, breaking the silence after a few minutes of his squirming.

“Tank,” he lies, even though it sort of is true - trying to brush off the Winter Soldier is the equivalent of swatting at a tank.

“Steve,” she says. It is amazing how much she conveys through a single word - exasperation, disappointment, mirth, and even hurt.

“It’s fine,” he tells her, not taking his eyes off the console. “Everything is fine.”

“I have experience with this,” she says, still looking at him. “I have painfully accurate experience with this. He is not who you remember.”

He flinches, the pain coursing through his body like she whipped him, and he just wants it all to stop. He wants everything to stop. He just wants to go back to being small, tiny Steve, that guy who’s biggest problem used to be making rent and cooking something filling for dinner with half a loaf of stale bread.

That guy had it good. His Bucky used to look at him like he was a fucking treasure.

It’s all Steve wants back.

He suppresses a sob, a choked, gasping sound of pain, but nothing goes past Natasha.

“Steve,” this time the word is an appeal, a pleading for good sense and reason.

He shakes his head. “Don’t, Tasha.”

She breathes through her nose, and he sees her counting down to ten in her mind, her go-to method for reigning her temper in when Clint annoys her by putting his life in unnecessary risk. If Steve were thinking straight, he would be honored that he warrants a reaction she regularly uses for Clint.

“Alright,” she says finally. “One month. You have one month to sort out this mess. I will hold the team back until then, and make sure you get some space. But, if I see you slipping in the field again, or limping so badly that you can’t walk, I will take this to Wilson.”

He groans. He won’t hear the end of it from Sam.

“Or worse,” she continues, her tone sharp. “Phil.”

“Tasha.”

“The man has first-hand experience with self-destructive assholes who think they deserve punishment,” she points out.

“Don’t, Tasha, please.”

“One month.”

He nods, and they spend the rest of the flight in silence.

 

 

 

It’s horrible, because Bucky, when he is Bucky, is the lover Steve remembers. He smells of linseed oil and soap, and the one time a pigeon landed on Steve’s window sill, he’d held it in the cup of his palms, both flesh and metal, like it was a precious treasure.

He is so gentle, and his eyes are so kind, that for the majority of their time together, Steve remembers exactly why he was so smitten with James Buchanan Barnes. But when Bucky vanishes and the Soldier starts pacing his living room floor like he has a score to settle with it, footfalls heavy and expression grim, well, Steve loves him too.

Steve loves him, because there is a part of him that will always love James Barnes, every version of him, every incarnation. He is foolish and suicidal and self-destructive, Steve would be the first to admit to it all, and he loves Bucky Barnes.

He wakes up on some nights, the nights when the Soldier hasn’t thoroughly ravaged and destroyed him. He wakes up on those nights, sheets wet with tears and sweat, he wakes up hand outstretched above him, curling around the ghost of his best friend’s palm, the ch-ch-ch-ch of train tracks echoing in his ears.

Then there are the nights that followed the day Tony’d handed him a file - the Winter Soldier’s file that Sam, Clint and Iron Man had dug up from a Hydra base before burning it down to ash. He had read that in the yellow light of the bathroom, curled up on the floor next to the toilet, because after a point, running from his bed to the bowl to throw up made him dizzy.

The nightmares - every single one induced by the contents of that file - come and go, but they entirely go away only on the nights the Soldier plows his ass and chokes him with his bare hands. When he is bleeding from his gums and his eye is bruised and purple, and his back feels like it’s on fire, his subconscious is too tired to throw him into nightmares.

A part of him thinks this is punishment. The rest of him believes it is his penance.

 

 

The Winter Soldier’s file has descriptions of Yasha’s time in Russia’s Red Room. His dalliance with the operative who’d later become the infamous Black Widow is a little too well documented for Steve’s fragile heart.

It is entirely irrational for Steve to be jealous, upset or sad, but he is all three. When they were kids, or even starving, hormonal teenagers, through everything and anything, his naked skin had been the only one Bucky’d ever touched.

He feels sick, imagining Bucky’s hands over Natasha’s gorgeous pale white flesh, even if there is a part of him that’s beyond grateful that he had someone for comfort during horrific times.

Steve is certain that Bucky comforted Natasha when she needed it the most, because that’s what Bucky does - he takes care of people even when he is on his last nerve, even when he has nothing more to give.

Steve wakes up to nightmares of the Soldier carving Natasha’s heart out with a knife, of Steve plummeting into the ocean, of drowning and freezing, and of waking up to losing everything.

Sometimes, lying in the Soldier’s tight grip, with tears flowing down his face like rivulets, while the Soldier is fucking him with no end in sight, Steve imagines not taking that plunge, he imagines that alternate universe in which he’d lived - would he have gone hunting after the Winter Soldier? Would he have pulled Bucky out of that hell earlier? Could they have built a life together?

Steve had plummeted to his assumed death because without Bucky, he’d seen no meaning in living on. Now that he has Bucky back without really having Bucky back, ninety years into their future, he just wants to die all over again, because living is so difficult.

Natasha comes around sometimes, and he is always Bucky when she does. Steve hasn’t yet seen the Soldier speak to her. When she is in their apartment, Steve feels himself be turned redundant, there is a space under Bucky’s arm carved out for Natalia, there is room on the couch next to his bobbing thigh just for her, and the two of them seemingly occupy a space that excludes Steve.

Bucky touches her.

Steve feels like he is dying every time Bucky’s knuckles brush against her arm.

 

 

He hasn’t been to work at SHIELD in weeks.

He hasn’t left his bedroom, much less his apartment in days. He gets up usually to just make it to the bathroom. His super soldier metabolism has an appetite that can not be helped, but Steve can’t bring himself to care. He has enough experience with starvation.

He spends his days lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling. Bucky joins him sometimes, lying beside him quietly, staring at the ceiling, his breathing more or less normal. Bucky holds himself carefully, so that they don’t touch, lying so close yet so far away.

Sometimes they talk, and Bucky’d ask him questions about his life, about Peggy, about Rebecca’s children, about Sam. Sometimes, Bucky’d ask about memories that are hazy, of history, of JFK’s assassination and Watergate and the Yankees, and Steve would pull out a StarkPad and open Wikipedia.

Most of the time, they just lie quietly next to each other, lost in thought.

Sometimes Bucky asks him why he is like this, why he won’t get off the bed, why he won’t eat, why he is so sad all the time. Steve doesn’t answer.

After every three days or so, Bucky nags at him to shower, standing in the doorway worriedly, eyes concerned and guilty.

Then, there are the days when it isn’t Bucky who joins Steve on the bed, but the Soldier. Those days, Steve is almost grateful for the transition, because at least the Soldier touches him, and when he does, Steve doesn’t feel hollow inside, like he is a useless waste of space who doesn’t deserve Bucky’s touch.

He can pretend that he does, that Bucky is touching him, that Bucky is hurting him, and that’s okay, that’s better than feeling dead inside and wanting to die.

Sam comes around on Day Twelve and pulls the sheets off Steve on the bed.

“What the hell, Sam?”

“Man, it’s rank in here,” Sam says. “Jesus Christ. I suspected things were bad, but not this - Steve, what the hell man?”

“Go away, Sam,” Steve pouts, and tugs at the sheets again to burrow inside them. He has absolutely no intention of moving off the bed. He was asleep, and he was dreaming, and in the dream, Bucky was smiling at him like he’s sunshine, and Bucky was touching him, and Bucky was holding him, and there was no pain.

Steve wants to go back to his dream.

“Yeah, no,” Sam says, leaning against Steve’s door frame, and crossing his arms over his chest. “For one, your boy called me all panicked and worried, and when Bucky Barnes calls me, I show up. That’s just doing my duty. For another, you’re being sad and pathetic and you need a good kick in the pants.”

Horrifyingly, humiliatingly, that turns out to be the breaking point.

Steve’s eyes are rapidly filling with tears, and before he can control himself, before he can hide behind some kind of deception, he is letting out choked half-sobs, throat closing up.

“Oh, Steve,” Sam says, and it makes everything so much worse, the cloying pity in Sam’s voice, the unwelcome kindness - Steve hates it all, and the dam breaks.

Sam reaches out, settling on the bed and throwing his legs on top, pulling Steve into his lap.

“Hey, it’s alright buddy,” he is saying. “Everything is going to be okay. Shhh, hey it’s okay. You’re okay.”

Sam, with years and years of experience in dealing with situations like these, takes Steve’s head in his lap and presses his hands against Steve’s ears, muffling all sounds, taking care to keep his forearm covering Steve’s eyes.

Steve crowds into the touch, because he cannot remember the last time someone touched him with gentleness, he cannot remember the last time someone showed him affection or hugged him.

“Settle down, that’s it, you’re okay,” he whispers quietly, “breathe with me, in and out, there you go, in and out, you’re fine, you’re doing great.”

After what feels like eternity, Steve calms down enough to breathe properly again, and slowly, he sits up in bed, keeping his face buried in his hands, feeling humiliated.

“Hey,” Sam says gently, reaching for the kleenex box on the nightstand. There is a fine layer of dust on top of it, it has been ages since Steve has done any kind of cleaning. “It’s alright, Steve. Nobody’s going to think less of you because you needed a cry. It happens, man. If anyone is entitled to a weeping fit, it’s probably Captain America.”

Sam hands him a couple of tissues from the box and fusses at his hair. Steve sniffles, and tries not to focus on anything, because that sinking feeling is back, he wants to go back to sleep, he wants to just stay alone in his bedroom, with the covers pulled up, in perfect darkness and lie still for hours.

“Come with me,” Sam says, as if he read Steve’s mind.

“What?”

“Come with me,” Sam repeats again. “I got errands to run, and I’m pretty sure you need to go grocery shopping. I cannot begin to imagine what the two of you have been eating around here, and growing super soldiers need their protein. Go take a shower, Steve,” Sam says in his pararescue voice that leaves no room for argument.

The last thing Steve wants to do is leave his apartment, but Sam nudges him into the shower and shuts the door, leaving Steve feeling awkward standing alone in the bathroom. He has another crying jag under the shower, feeling angry at Sam, at Hydra, at the Soldier and at Bucky Barnes.

Bucky still won’t touch him. Bucky called Sam because he is worried about Steve, but he is not worried enough to touch him.

Steve wants to die, and every breath feels painful, like the air is squeezing all the life out of him. He draws on every last reserve of courage he has to put on clean clothes and get into Sam’s car for a trip to the grocery store. Sam tries to get him to talk - about the music on the car stereo, about SHIELD, about his co-workers at the VA, and about how Tony improved his Falcon wings.

Steve nods along and hums in the right places, but he is certain he isn’t fooling Sam.

They go shopping, and Sam forces a new pair of running shoes on Steve, now that Bucky is using his old pair.

“Habits, routine,” Sam insists. “You need to stick to a routine, alright? Do what you always do. Establish a routine, and reinforce habits. It will be good for both you and him.”

The addendum that it might benefit Bucky is the only reason Steve pays any attention. That urge to sink into his mattress is clawing at his insides again.

“Steve,” Sam says finally, after dropping Steve off back at his place and putting the groceries into cupboards. “Don’t succumb to it, man. Don’t stay locked up. You call me if you need to talk, alright?”

Steve promises he will before he lets Sam out, locking the door behind him and collapsing on the couch. Bucky is nowhere to be seen.

Steve eventually makes his way back to his bed, but only after lying motionless and unfeeling on his couch for hours.

 

 

Bucky asks him one morning, over runny yellow eggs and waffles why he puts up with it.

“He is horrible to you,” Bucky says. “Why?”

Because you won’t touch me.

Because you got hurt, and it was my fault.

Because he is you, and I love you.

Because when he hurts me, I feel something other than being numb all the time.

Because I love you, and him.

Steve says none of these things, only smiles at Bucky and plates up eggs. The two of them go through a ridiculous amount of food, so Sam’d taken Steve to Costco and taught him how to buy three dozen eggs in one go.

“There is blood on the sheets,” Bucky presses. Steve sighs and drops onto a stool, digging into his food.

“I told you - you don’t have to do all the laundry,” Steve says because what else should he say?

“How bad is he hurting you, Stevie?”

“I am fine,” he says through gritted teeth.

“It’s that goddamn file, isn’t it? I’m gonna burn it.”

Steve entirely understands the impulse - he has spent entire nights lying awake, entertaining visions of various ways in which he could set fire to that thing. It doesn’t help.

Tony took him back to one of the Hydra bases that had held a version of The Chair. Steve had smashed the thing to little pieces. He knows firsthand - it doesn’t help.

“Should I call Wilson?” Bucky asks, and Steve’s head jerks up, surprised.

“Bucky.”

“I worry about you.”

Steve feels like a filthy, small little insect. Ninety years into the future and after going through hell, Bucky Barnes is still taking care of him.

“I don’t want you to,” he says. “I want you to focus on getting better.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I dunno.”

“You’re a stubborn punk.”

“That’s more like it,” Steve grins, even though tears are shining in his eyes.

 

 

“Вы прекрасны,” the Soldier whispers in Steve’s ear.

Steve is panting, entirely out of breath, throat burning, tears still making their way down his cheeks into the pillow. He doesn’t think he can move again, ever.

The soldier is petting his hair, uncharacteristically affectionate and soft after wrecking Steve like a battering ram. Steve feels utterly destroyed, more by the affection than the violence that preceded it.

Steve knows some Russian, it was impossible to go through war without picking up a couple of languages, so he understands a little of it.

The Soldier, when he speaks, only speaks Russian.

 _You are beautiful,_ Steve translates in his head, eyes fluttering close in exhaustion.

“Ты мой,” the Soldier says. _You are mine._

“Я хочу, чтобы отметить вас,” the Soldier’s teeth grasp onto gentle skin at his neck, making him groan in pain. _I want to mark you._

“Очень прошу,” he breathes into Steve’s neck. _Beg._

Steve’s throat is raspy, and it burns from chafing and a lack of oxygen. It’s incredible how deep the Soldier can stuff him when he puts his mind to it.

“Please,” he groans, and his voice sounds even raspier. “Please please please -”

He doesn’t know what he is supposed to be begging for. Whatever the Soldier could possibly want to do to him, the chances are he already has -

“просить наказания,” Soldier grunts, teeth now torturing a bleeding nipple. _Ask for punishment._

What is he being punished for, Steve doesn’t know, but he is certain he deserves it, whatever it is.

“Please - please -,” he croaks out, and the Soldier’s metal arm is spreading his legs, throwing one over his shoulder, holding him wide open. Steve’s thighs are burning, and more tears are making their way down his face.

Fingers are pushed into his heat, no longer tight, not after four rounds, and he bites his lips to keep from screaming. Every nerve ending feels like it’s on fire, after being fucked raw and open with Bucky’s cock and fingers and his entire flesh hand -

The Soldier grunts out some more Russian. _Beg for punishment._

“Please - punish me, hurt me - I deserve it - please, please, please -”

This time, Steve screams. He screams when the Soldier pushes inside in one violent, unkind, unrelenting thrust, and he is certain he is torn open, and he can’t stop the gasping, heaving sobs making their way out of his throat, and he hears the soldier say -

_You cry so prettily._

And he cries some more, because everything hurts and he feels like he is in mourning like he never was before, not even the horrid evening after Bucky fell off that train, he is mourning now, he is mourning the loss of the love of his life, of his Bucky, he will never get that Bucky back, and all he has is this facsimile of that kind, loving, generous man; and how can he complain, how can he regret anything, when he has his lover back in some form, even if it isn’t in the form he wanted, he has this - he has the Soldier…

He is fucked up about Bucky Barnes.

He always will be.

He doesn’t say anything, not even when the Soldier manhandles him and turns him over, forcing his head down into the pillows to keep on fucking him.

 

 

He spends the next day shaking to his bones, feeling chilly like he hasn’t since the serum. He feels awful, and it’s not even pain in the physical sense. It’s a raging emptiness, unbidden pangs of unworthiness keeping him awake and making him curl into himself. Humiliation, embarrassment, shame - feelings that Bucky has never been responsible for, not even when they’re playing, not even when Bucky’d tie him up and call him filthy names, not even then.

Steve feels the worst on the days after the Soldier plays with him, getting in his head and making him shake at his knees, literally.

 

 

 

He comes home from his morning run to the sight of Phil Coulson at his kitchen counter, and Bucky placing a cup of coffee in front of him.

Steve sighs, but takes one of the stools opposite Phil.

“Has it been a month already?” he asks. Phil raises an eyebrow at him, but offers no other reaction.

Bucky clears his throat.

“I am going for a run,” he says and looks at Phil. “Think about my request. And knock some sense into him.” He shrugs and leaves the room, closing the front door behind him.

Phil stares at Steve in that unflappably calm, unnerving way of his. Steve squirms quietly for as long as he can before breaking the silence.

“What request?” he starts with the most obvious question.

“One of my childhood heroes just asked me to lock him up in a SHIELD holding cell so that he won’t hurt one of my other childhood heroes, who I hear, is being a complete idiot.”

“Phil -”

“You’re being enormously stupid, Captain Rogers,” Phil says, not holding anything back. “I handled Clint Barton for years. Coming from me, that is saying something.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, just goes to the fridge and gets orange juice. He finds a glass and pours, before settling again at the counter, hands wrapping around the cold glass.

“Why?” Phil asks, causing Steve to look up at him.

“I love him,” Steve answers, because he is done lying about that, he won’t, not anymore, he won’t hide this, “I have loved him since we were eight. We were - together - before the war, during the war -”

Steve doesn’t know what kind of reaction he’s expecting, but he definitely didn’t think complete nonchalance.

“This is hardly a secret, Captain.”

“SHIELD knew?”

“Everybody knew,” Phil shrugs. “I am sorry, Steve, but your relationship with Sergeant Barnes is one of the most studied homoerotic relationships of our times. There are books, academic papers, movies - there is an entire sub-culture spawned off by your story. People have speculated for years. Carter and the Commandos refused to deny anything, which only strengthened the theories.”

Steve feels like his head is spinning.

“What?”

“I get that this is a lot of take in,” Phil says. “You really should have been briefed better when you woke up from the ice, SHIELD completely mishandled that one, I know -”

“Everyone knew? But nobody has said anything -”

“I know people in the twenty first century can be jerks,” Phil says. “But nobody wanted to ask you about your presumed dead best friend and possibly, lover.”

Steve shakes his head, and buries it in his hands.

“I don’t believe this.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. Why?”

“I love him, Phil.”

“He is not Bucky Barnes,” Phil says and Steve flinches, unable to stop the torrent of pain even though he knew it was coming.

“I know that.”

“Do you really?” Phil asks. “Because I have just had Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, this country’s bravest and longest suffering prisoner of war, a man who has had his freedom taken away from him for decades - I have just had that man ask me voluntarily to lock him up for as long as you live.”

“Over my dead body,” Steve grunts out. “Nobody is locking him up.”

“Oh, I don’t want to,” Phil agrees. “But whether or not I will be forced to is entirely down to you.”

“What do you mean?”

Phil removes a manila folder from his jacket and opens it on the counter.

“Sergeant Barnes has multiple personality disorder,” Phil says. “His consciousness is split between the Winter Soldier, named Yasha, and Barnes himself. He needs treatment, and the resources to be able to handle his condition. He needs extensive trauma recovery therapy. None of SHIELD’s highly qualified mental health professionals think that your current situation is helping.”

“Can therapy help him?”

“It is hard to tell,” Phil says. “Barnes at least, promised me that he would try if it meant the Soldier can stop hurting you. We have no way of predicting when they will transition into the other, and placing a SHIELD therapist alone in the room with the Winter Soldier is a bad idea.”

“You want me in the room,” Steve says, all the pieces falling into place.

“No,” Phil explains. “I want Natasha in the room. There are few other people who understand the Red Room’s conditioning. Yasha actually trained her in the 60s. She can hold him down if things go south.”

Something like ugly jealousy makes its way through his veins. He has read the files, he knows the nature of Yasha’s relationship with Natalia. He hates it irrationally, he hates it with every fiber of his being.

“I would rather it was me in the room.”

Phil smiles at him pityingly, like he knows the reason for Steve’s protesting. And what’s more, he probably does. Phil and Clint have been on a volatile, all-consuming destructive spiral since he came back from the dead.

“Steve,” Phil says. “Find me one certified mental health professional who believes you are good for his recovery, and I will clear him for civilian life right now.”

Steve sighs, shoulders relenting, knowing Coulson is right.

“Besides,” Phil continues. “This is not healthy for you either. I am scheduling you for sessions with Dr. Wu. You remember her? She worked with both Stark and Clint, and contrary to whatever Stark claims about psychology not being a real science, both of them are doing better. No Captain, I refuse to lose you over this. I have got a crumbling intelligence agency to hold together, Captain. My first job as Director will NOT be locking up Bucky Barnes. You will attend all your sessions, you will talk, and you will get better. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he gives in, feeling tired. He understands now what Natasha meant when she’d said Coulson knew what he was talking about.

“If he tries to touch you again, you will throw him through a wall.”

“Phil.”

“You will do it for him, Steve,” Phil insists rather vehemently. “I don’t care what is going through your head. I don’t care what you think you need. Do you really think letting the Soldier hurt you is helping Bucky Barnes?”

“What did he say to you, exactly?”

“Enough for me to understand that Barnes isn’t entirely unaware of what happens when the Soldier is at the helm.”

“That also means the Soldier knows - knows what we are planning,” Steve points out.

“Yes,” Phil agrees. “I am not saying this is going to be easy. I am only saying you don’t have to deal with this alone. You’ve got a team now. You’ve got people who understand. Let Natasha help.”

“Alright,” Steve gives in. “The Soldier is going to resist, you know. What those bastards did to him -”

“I am aware,” Phil says. “Do you need a mission? Do you want to take down some bases in Bosnia?”

Normally, Steve would jump on an offer like that. But this conversation has left him reeling. He is too tired, weariness seeping through his bones and weighing him down. He wants to sleep for a hundred years, but he knows from experience that waking up from such an indulgence is tinged with pain and loss.

He shakes his head in response to Phil.

“I think I need a break,” he admits shamefully. “The team?”

“They can survive a couple of weeks without you,” Phil nods.

“Do they know?”

“Only the identity of the Winter Soldier, and that you’re handling things,” Phil explains. “They are on standby to assist if you ask for it, but other that that, Tasha’s convinced them to hang back. Even Stark.”

“I owe that woman,” Steve presses his face into his palms again.

“We all do,” Phil smiles against his coffee cup.

“Can I ask you something personal?”

“Captain,” Phil says. “I have spent the better part of the past hour prodding at your sexuality, your romantic history and your sex life. At this point, I think you’re entitled to ask me personal questions.”

“You have always loved him more than Captain America, haven’t you?” he smiles at Phil.

Phil is taken aback for less than a second, not expecting the turn the conversation has taken.

“I was a queer boy growing up in Oregon,” Phil tries to explain. “So when I saw how close Captain America was to Bucky Barnes in the comics -”

“You suspected?”

“Everyone did,” Phil shrugs his shoulders. “But that’s not the point. Even if your relationship was entirely platonic, just the fact that two men could enjoy a close friendship was sort of a big deal.”

“It was a different time.”

“Also,” Phil flushes. “I sort of had a crush on him.”

“Hey,” Steve laughs. “Who am I to make fun? Everyone knows about my crush on him. It’s alright. He’s a charmer. Half the dames in our neighborhood wanted to marry him, and the other half wanted him for a son.” He brushes the back of his hand against his eyes.

“He is charming,” Phil admits. “But that’s not why I loved him. I don’t think that’s entirely why a lot of boys grew up loving him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you know he was offered an honorable discharge?”

Steve feels his throat going dry.

“Wha - at?”

“After Azzano,” Phil says, brushing a thumb against the rim of his coffee cup. “After the rescue you orchestrated, he was offered an honorable discharge to go home. He was tortured at that camp. There is enough historical evidence to support it, even without what has come to light recently.”

“I don’t -”

“He stayed, Captain,” Phil says. “He stayed, and I don’t believe he stayed to take in the scenic beauty of World War II Europe.”

“I was getting ready - I was putting a team together,” Steve breathes out.

“There is no way he was going to let you go to war alone,” Phil says, his voice kind. “As a boy growing up, that was sort of the ultimate ideal, you know? To be loved by someone like Bucky Barnes, who’d stick around after being tortured, getting through that much fear and trauma, all for love.”

Steve’s hands are shaking.

“I didn’t know.”

“Of course, today we know he got at least three doses of Zola’s serum at Azzano,” Phil says and Steve feels like he’s going to be sick. “His body was changing. Our doctors think he must have been burning up for weeks afterward. Headaches, nausea, night terrors - the list of side effects alone.. Zola was no Erskine. His initial effort was shoddy at best. And yet, Barnes stayed.”

“He wouldn’t sleep,” Steve gasps, remembering. “He would stay up all night, sometimes playing cards with me, sometimes just singing songs around a fire. I remember asking him if he was alright -”

“We have no evidence to suggest he told anyone,” Phil says reassuringly. “If he didn’t tell you, then odds are he told nobody.”

“How much did he go through all alone? I didn’t even guess -”

“The point is,” Phil says. “Neither of you need to be alone now.”

They are silent together for a while afterward, Phil tapping his fingers on the counter surface, Steve lost in thought.

“When do I start with Dr. Wu?” Steve asks finally.

“Today at three,” Phil says rising up from his seat and brushing his jacket with a practiced hand. “I will send you an email and set up a schedule.”

“Thank you, Phil.”

“Say the word, Captain,” Phil promises, gathering up his folder. “Hydra bases in Bosnia. I will have you on a plane in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll remember that.”

 

 

 

 

Natasha brings Bucky home that night, after his first therapy session.

When they arrive he is still Bucky, but slowly transitioning to the Soldier, the lines around his eyes hardening. Tasha settles him on the floor of Steve’s living room, and cuffs him to a deadbolt Tony’d fitted to the ground with bolts made of vibranium. The cuffs are vibranium too, and made by Tony to hold the Hulk; there isn’t a feasible way for the Soldier to get out of those.

She doesn’t mention how the therapy session went. Steve doesn’t ask.

Steve settles on the couch, a good distance away from the Soldier, and tries to punch a pillow into shape.

“You don’t have to sleep here,” the Soldier says. No - the Soldier doesn’t speak English - his eyes are kind and sad, and Steve finds himself looking into Bucky’s face.

“I thought - I thought you were him -”

“He went down again,” Bucky answers. “He gets bored real fast if he isn’t allowed to touch you.”

“How did he take it?”

“He is grumbling for now,” Bucky smiles. “He will get frustrated soon enough.”

“Can I untie you? He’s down anyway.”

“I can’t control when we phase, Steve,” Bucky tells him. “It’s safer this way.”

“I hate seeing you tied up,” Steve suppresses a sob. “You are supposed to be free.”

“There was a time when seeing me tied up used to get you all kinds of riled,” Bucky yawns, and it breaks Steve’s heart, it breaks his heart how much Bucky sounds like from back when, the Brooklyn accent lilt clear in his voice, the teasing humor and the reference to shared, wonderful memories of evenings spent curled up around Bucky’s naked torso.

“Shut up, punk,” Steve laughs, unable to help how red he is turning. There is a part of him that’s thrilled that Bucky is referencing sex. He’s been dying for Bucky to touch him, and now, it doesn’t feel like an impossibility any more. It feels - real.

“You were so pretty back then,” Bucky says and Steve feels his heart chirping in contentment.

“Whaddya mean then?” he asks. “What about now? Am I not pretty no more?”

“You are beautiful, sweetheart,” he drawls, and Steve sees it then, he sees the resemblance, he sees how the Soldier says it to him with the exact same expression. Sweetheart. “You are the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, but back then, you used to smile like you meant it. You used to smile like the fucking Sun, and I would lose my breath just looking at you. Don’t smile much anymore.”

Steve sighs, and sits back on the couch.

“I am so sorry,” he admits, words in a rush to get out, toppling over one another, merging and flowing into each other. “I am sorry you - I am sorry I didn’t jump after you - I am sorry I didn’t find you sooner. I am so sorry.”

“I missed you,” Bucky says, and Steve takes a sharp breath.

“I missed you too,” he sobs, entirely uncaring of the tears now rolling down both cheeks. He leans against the back of the couch, head titled and looking at the ceiling. “I love you, Buck.”

“I love you too, punk,” Bucky croaks and there’s a note of faint mirth in his voice. “Always too much trouble you were. Never listened. Had a death wish a mile wide, and then you went and put a plane down in the Arctic.”

“Dinna mean to,” he lies.

“Course you did,” Bucky snorts. “Always been a rotten liar, Stevie.”

“Didn’t see a point without you,” he sobs, wiping the back of his forearm over his eyes. “‘Twas supposed to be us, together in everything.”

“You fucking drama queen.”

“Shoulda jumped after you.”

“And gotten your bones broken for all ‘twas worth.”

“Coulda pulled you out from Hydra, from those - monsters.”

“Ain’t your fault,” he croaks, and he is shaking now, shaking on the floor with his hands and legs cuffed, the vibranium chains gleaming in the pale moonlight streaming through the open window. “Never your fault.”

“I am so sorry,” Steve is crying now, ugly,giant tears making their way down his face, snotty, gasping for breath.

“Don’t be an idiot, Rogers.”

“I want to kill the whole lot of them.”

“Yeah? Well, get in fucking line,” Bucky croaks, and for the first time in this conversation, he sounds like himself again.

“Why won’t you touch me?” Steve asks, because what shame has he got left where Bucky is concerned?

“Cuffed to the floor, aren’t I?”

“You know what I mean.”

“He touches you all the time,” Bucky snaps vehemently, eyes dancing with a different kind of rage. “You let him touch you all the goddamn time.”

“He’s you,” Steve points out. “He’s you and he’s not you. But you won’t touch me at all, what did I do -”

“You didn’t do nothin’ baby,” he cajoles, hands stretching out in front of him to try and touch, to comfort, but the chains yank and Steve is too far away on the couch.

“I am sorry,” Steve cries. “I am sorry for being so - I am sorry - I am dirty, I ain’t - Bucky -”

“Hush now, darlin’,” Bucky croons at him. “You ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

“Why won’t you touch me?”

“Because of the secret I am tryin ta hide, Stevie,” he says seriously. “Even from you. It’s the ugly truth of who I am, of what I am. My hands are bloodied, and I ain’t ruining the purest thing I know in the world.”

“Bucky -” he sobs.

“Wanna know my secret, Steve?” he asks, eyebrow cocking, gaze locked faraway. “You will flinch away from me when you see the darkness I’ve become.”

“Never,” he insists. “That’s not you! That wasn’t you. You’re still my Bucky.”

“You just said - you are getting your head around in spins, Steve. You just said he is me. And now he isn’t? It’s my hands that killed, isn’t it?”

“I want - you’re perfect - I am -”

“I have loved you for decades,” Bucky says with a tone of finality. “Of the two of us, I’ve always known who’s the angel, pretty.”

“I want you - please - let me - will you touch -”

“If you come near those cuffs, I will knock you out, I swear to God.”

“Bucky -”

“Go to sleep, pretty,” he says gently. “I am right here. Just - stretch out on that couch, there’s a brave boy, go to sleep. Everything will be okay.”

It’s one of the biggest lies Bucky’s ever told him, but Steve puts his head down into the cushions and closes his eyes.

 

 

 

 

It is really, really difficult to go to therapy.

Steve only goes because he promised Coulson, and because there is an ugly, competitive side of him that wants to try as hard as Bucky is trying. He wants to be just a little less broken than he is.

He feels wrecked and damaged and disgusting on the inside, and he has to bare open his soul to the kind-faced Dr. Wu.

“Not really,” she tells him in their first session together. “This is not a confession, Captain. It’s not a deposition for congress. This can just be a conversation.”

“I’d rather not talk at all.”

“We can be quiet, too. I can be quiet.”

“Seems odd, for your profession,” he points out.

“On the contrary,” she explains. “Most of my time with patients is spent listening rather than talking.”

He nods, accepting the truth in that.

They spend several quiet minutes in their first session together, and he only breaks the silence to ask about her - what she does, does she enjoy her job, does she like New York - and she seems happy to answer him, even though it is clear she is playing along only to make him more comfortable.

They speak about New York bagels, and what bananas tasted like in the thirties, and the Dodgers, and that’s that.

The next session, Steve brings some of his sketch pencils because he promised he would. He settles down cross-legged on the floor with his pencils on the coffee table, sketching and talking. On some level, he is aware he is being lulled into a false blanket of security, a ploy to keep his hands busy and get him to talk, but he clams up at so much as a mention of Bucky Barnes, and he clings on to the childish desire to be cowardly for a little bit longer.

She lets him.  
He leaves their second session after handing over a sketch of the view of New York through her office window, which she pins up to a corkboard that’s already crowded with pictures of Dr. Wu with a little girl, about five. From his rude prying into her personal life, he knows that she has a daughter in kindergarten, a precocious cello player.

He doesn’t know if any of this is supposed to help him. He still feels dead inside, and sometimes, it is like his insides have been raw and throbbing with pain for so long that he doesn’t notice.

He goes to his third session right after Tasha ties up a snarling Soldier to Steve’s arm chair. The Soldier doesn’t go willingly, he is practically clawing Natasha’s skin off her face, trying to get to Steve, angry and violent.

“We did not like therapy today,” she informed Steve as Bucky regained control and the Soldier went down.

“He did not like therapy today,” Bucky clarified. “He does not like the world in general, so I wouldn’t take it too seriously.”

There is nobody who’s more glib about the Soldier than Bucky Barnes.

“Are you alright?” Steve asks, his heart in his throat, because a part of him really, intensely wants to go to the Soldier and uncuff his bindings. Steve tries very hard every day to suppress that part of him.

“I’m fine,” Bucky says. “More importantly, Dr. Walter is fine. And the Soldier did not entirely destroy her office, so I am calling today a win.”

Natasha takes in Steve’s pale face and nudges him into one of the couch cushions.

“Breathe, Rogers,” she says and takes his hand in hers and presses it to her own chest. He feels the thum-thum-thum of her heartbeat and finds his own breathing slowing down to match hers.

“I’m fine,” he says after a moment. “I need to go. I have an appointment.”

“Get out of here,” Bucky says. The last thing Steve sees before he steps out the door is Natasha leaning close and Bucky using the fingers of one of his cuffed hands to brush away a stray hair off her forehead.

He enters Dr. Wu’s office and collapses on her couch, full-on collapses, body stretched out, flat on his face, burying into the cushion.

“Hello to you too, Captain Rogers,” she says. “Having a bad day?”

He hates everything and everyone, and merely grunts in response.

“Right,” she says. “We are doing stressed monosyllables today, apparently.”

He sits up, and is entirely aware he’s gruff and frowning at everything, entirely on the wrong foot, feeling rejected, despair soaking him to the bones.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to talk about anything, alright?” he says harshly, and on any other day, Steve Rogers would be mortified at his own lack of manners, but he is irritated, and angry. “I don’t want to. I am broken and I hate it and I hate everything and I am only here because I promised Phil, and you’re very nice, and I am sorry you have to waste your time on me.”

He pants harshly for a minute while Dr. Wu sits there, just taking him in over her glasses and her yellow legal pad.

“Alright,” she nods. “Why do you think you’re broken?”

“That’s what you are taking away from all that?”

“That’s what interests me the most,” she smiles. “But we can go through it all, one by one if you’d rather prefer that.”

That would involve more talking than he wants, so Steve folds his arms over his chest and sits stubbornly, staring back. She looks at him entirely unamused, a quirk of her eyebrow saying, I can do this all day.

He realizes that she probably could.

“So,” she says, uncapping her pen and capping the other end with it, “why do you think you’re broken, Captain?”

“Are you saying I am not?”

“No,” she says. “I have no idea if you are or not. How do you even tell something like that? I don’t know any better than you do.”

“Then why?”

“You were the one who made the claim in the first place, Captain,” she says. “The burden of proof lies on the one who made the claim, no matter how stupid it is.”

“So you do think it’s stupid.”

“Perhaps,” she nods. “I ask again. Why do you think you’re broken?”

“I want him,” he chokes out, the admission hurting, it’s even more painful to hear out loud, even if he isn’t ashamed for wanting him. He will always want him. How could he not? The Soldier is Bucky Barnes, and he will always want Bucky Barnes.

“And by him,” she says. “You mean the person whom we don’t mention?”

He nods, throat closing up, shameful tears filling his eyes. She doesn’t bat an eyelid, just rises off her arm chair to hand him the box of tissues off her desk.

“You want him,” she nods. “That’s what you’re feeling. That’s alright.”

“How could it be - it’s not alright!”

“All I am saying,” she looks at him like he is a very interesting piece of puzzle and Steve kind of wants to claw his skin off his bones, “is that you have permission to feel. Whether or not the actions induced by that feeling is healthy, does not invalidate your right to feel.”

“He is my best friend,” Steve chokes out. “And he is traumatized.”

“He is.”

“I want him to be okay.”

“I know,” she nods again. He feels the tears burning in his eyes, and he lets them fall this time, burying his face in her couch cushion.

“I feel broken,” he gasps out because damn it, he can be brave. Bucky’s been so brave when the world and Steve had no right to ask more courage of him, the man has given everything already, but Bucky is out there fighting his own demons, and Steve can be brave just this once for Bucky Barnes. “I feel broken because - I want that Bucky back. I am falling apart having this version of him who is not really him, I know that now, but I want him to get better so that I can stop feeling like this, and that’s the most selfish thing I have ever felt.”

Steve nods, throat closing up. He cannot even begin to put into words all the things Bucky is to him.

“That’s not necessarily selfish,” she tells him kindly. “You want him to get better. You want to end his suffering, yes?”

“I want him to be happy,” he is still choking up, barely able to get the words out. “I want to share his happiness, whatever he chooses.”

“I don’t see what’s selfish about that.”

“It’s just - I feel so broken without him. He touches her. He lets her touch him. Why am I not allowed -?”

“Up until a few days ago, he touched you all the time.”

“It wasn’t him,” Steve sits up, dabbing at the snot and tears running down his face with more Kleenex. “I am not in denial. I know it’s not him. I know he’s not the Soldier. Besides, after the Soldier is done touching me, I feel sick. Bucky never made me feel that way.”

“Sick how?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs. “Not important, I don’t think. But I am so broken that I miss the Soldier touching me anyway.”

“Sick how, Captain Rogers?”

“I don’t - its just - like - I’d feel sad. Hopeless,” he tells him. “One time, I went through a whole day in bed without realizing it’s been that long. I can’t deal with going outside after Bucky - after the Soldier is done - is through with me.”

“Captain,” she looks at him seriously now. “This is very harmful.”

“I usually heal quick -”

“Not that,” she shakes her head, folding her hands against her chest. “What do you know about BDSM practices and aftercare?”

“I am sorry?”

She gets up, moving to her bookshelf and rooting between the spines before pulling out a small volume with a deceptive looking cover.

“Research,” she says, throwing it to him. “I don’t know what you did in the forties, Captain. But we have come a long way since then. BDSM relationships and interactions are not uncommon. There is substantive research suggesting that aftercare immediately following a scene is essential to the well being of all parties.”

With shaking hands, he turns the pages in the book catching various titles and feeling his face heat up.

“You’ve been experiencing tremors? I’d predict shivering, chilliness, dissociation, tiredness, nausea, sadness and prolonged numbness in the extremities.”

“I - erm, yes.”

“I would recommend you set aside an evening to do some reading. I’d also warrant caution if you want to do your research on the internet.”

He blushes again, “Right.”

He doesn’t know what he thought recovery would look like, but it wasn’t this.

 

 

 

Aftercare, it turns out, is an important part of what he and the Soldier were doing.

Even back then, back during the war, when they found some time and privacy in a tent somewhere in Europe, Bucky’d spend hours taking Steve apart. Usually, after, in the quiet of the night, he would hold Steve through the shudders, kissing his neck and praising him, calling him beautiful.

What he and Soldier have been doing now, on the other hand - Steve knows from his reading that it could have been hurting him too. They were so stupid, so recklessly caught up in their own heads. Steve is grateful that Coulson pried them apart.

Even if every inch of his skin is craving Bucky’s touch.

He is convinced that he’s fucked in the head when it comes to Bucky, but he won’t have it any other way.

 

 

 

 

“We are going to the Tower,” Tony announces, pulling the comforter off Steve and hitting him in the face with a pillow.

“Ow,” Steve complains, rubbing his arms in the sudden chill of the room. “I was sleeping - how did you get in here - Tony!”

“Your security is a joke,” Tony shrugs, sitting down on the edge of Steve’s bed.

“I live with the Winter Soldier,” Steve grits out, burrowing his face back in his warm pillows.

“Come on grandpa. The team hasn’t seen you in weeks, and I don’t care how much interference Russian Witch runs, you’ve gotta come to dinner -”

“How do you talk without taking a breath?”

“It’s a talent,” Tony continues. “Come on, Rogers, it will do the team some good to know you’ve not been murdered by the Soviet Death Kitten -”

“How did you get past him?

“Barnes? He is sweet on me. He made me a milkshake.

Steve’s brain backtracks several steps and sniffs the air groggily because what.

“He made you - milkshake?”

“Banana and strawberries,” Tony nods. “So what, you coming or not? Coz Banner is making this alcoholic blend that he swears is enough to knock you out, never mind Thor - and you can invite Metal Man out there if you want, just come will you, the whole team has missed you, it’s like we’ve got no more senior citizens around to tell us stories about the good ol’ days.”  
Something in the way Tony says the whole team has missed you sort of implies I have missed you and Steve feels something warm spreading in his chest.

Tony and he had been making real progress in their relationship before Bucky showed up, and Steve likes to think Tony is the kind of friend who is earnest and caring in an unprompted way. It’s one of his best qualities. Steve has learned enough to not point it out to him.

“- and Barton shot a pigeon off the roof of the tower, and that’s just plain wrong, I donate to PETA like thrice a year or something, and Natasha got mad about how Thor keeps leaving wet towels in the living area, so you really need to come and whip them all into shape and shame them into keeping the place neat - what?”

“I missed you too, Tony,” Steve smiles at him and pulls him into a hug.

“Mrrrfff - you giant dope - it’s like hugging a wall, ow - are you made of muscle, let me go -”

“What’s for dinner?”

“Barton’s ordering greasy Chinese,” Tony answers. “Pepper wanted Mediterranean salads and dips. So we’re getting a bit of both. Come on Rogers,” Tony tugs on Steve’s arm and pulls, and it’s sort of like tugging at a tree trunk with a rope, entirely ineffective, “Why are you in bed at four in the afternoon anyway, are the senior citizen jokes actually turning your head in?”

“I was having a bad day.”

The silence in the room is weird after Tony’s verbal barrage, but he fills it soon enough.

“Can we help?”

The quiet tone in which the question is asked is uncharacteristic, but Steve hears what Tony won’t say anyway: can I help? What can I do? We are a team, Rogers. You were the one who taught me that. You can’t go lone wolf on me now.

Steve straightens and gets off the bed. He’s ignored his team long enough. He stands up and goes to take a shower.

“Tell Bucky to get dressed up.”

 

 

 

 

Seeing the team after so long feels strange, but exceedingly normal at the same time.  
They’re the same teammates who stood by him and fought off an army. They’re the same teammates who trusted a leader when they had no reason to. Steve is sort of reluctantly fond of the whole lot of them, even Natasha, who irrationally angers him only in association to Bucky.

“You alright, Cap?” Barton asks him when they crowd together at the hummus table (Tony’d gotten Pepper an entire table of hummus. The man does not know the meaning of quiet small dinner affair).

Steve’s been asked the question many times already this evening. You alright Cap?

Barton now asks the same question, one eyebrow shrugging in the direction of Bucky, who’s slouched in a corner of the room where two walls meet, his eyes darting quickly from one person to the next, entirely separated from the rest of them, his shoulders a line of tension.

Natasha had tried talking to him, but he’d shut her out as well; and a horrible part of Steve is pleased that he’s not the only one thrown out of Bucky’s bubble tonight. He wants to be able to help, but so far, nothing seems to have.

“I am okay,” he answers Barton as they both reach for more chips with hummus.

“Can’t believe it’s actually him,” Clint says, loading up a plate. “James Buchanan Barnes. I thought Phil was going to start dancing in the middle of the debrief.”

“He’s a fan, I am given to understand.”

Clint laughs. “There were posters, Cap. Stickers. There was once a Bucky Barnes tie that died a horrific, accidental death in a flaming arrow incident.”

“I am sure,” Steve chuckles. “Accidental?”

“Fine, you caught me. I am the jealous type. But man, Bucky Barnes.”

“I know.”

“It’s really him?”

“Really him,” Steve agrees, feeling the strange freedom of being able to discuss his man. The best man. The most perfect man in the world. “He is really, really my Bucky.”

The minute the words are out, he feels his skin flush.

“I figured it was something like that,” Clint says nonchalant, seeming oblivious to Steve’s inner turmoil. “There was a movie once, about you guys. Phil loves it. Has it on DVD and gets it out every veterans’ day. The things I do for love, I tell you.”

“The things we do for love,” Steve agrees, because he knows. He gets it.

Clint fixes Steve with a firm stare, hand on Steve’s arm.

“You call on us if you need us, Cap,” he says. “You understand me?”

“Thank you, Clint.”  
  
“We have too many lone wolves on this team already,” Clint points out. “We can do without one more.”

“I know.”

Clint squeezes his shoulder one last time before taking up his loaded plates to Nat and Phil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You didn’t look like you enjoyed yourself,” Steve says gently to Bucky on their walk back home. He can see Bucky’s shoulders visibly relax the farther they get from the Tower. He’d spent the entire visit with his back firmly pressed to the wall, refusing food or drink, just quiet in his little bubble of isolation.

“It’s fine,” he says, and his tone gives Steve pause. He’d liked hanging out with his team again. It felt like a good day after a string of bad gloominess, that Steve is almost scared to think about it in fear of jinxing his high spirits.

“Bucky -”

“You have nice friends,” Bucky replies.

“They can be your friends too. You already know Phil and Nat and Sam -”

“Was that Stark’s kid?”

“Tony,” Steve nods. “Yeah. But he doesn’t like talking about Howard.”

“Does he know?”

Steve feels his heart in his throat. “Bucky.”

“Does he, Steve?”

“Was that why you were so tense?” Steve asks, because this is horrible. “Buck, Tony is my friend. He won’t - he’s not gonna - he knows that wasn’t you -”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Buck.”

“I remember it,” Bucky continues, and Steve wants to claw off the skin off his face. “I remember Howard screaming. His wife was beautiful, I remember that. She had kind eyes. I don’t think I realized then that he was Howard Stark. He was just the target.”

“I am so sorry, Buck.”  
“How old was he? Your friend. Orphan. Because of me.”

“He is - Buck, he is one of the best men I know. He understands. He won’t hold it against you.”

“What if he does? What if he makes you choose? You shouldn’t lose your friends because of me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Steve chuckles, unable to believe what he is hearing.

“I am not more important than your friends, Steve.”

“You obnoxious, stupid, silly idiot,” Steve says, desperately stopping himself from grabbing Bucky by the coat and kissing him. “Nothing is more important than you. Nothing.”

Bucky smiles at him, sad and watery-eyed, but under the yellow light of the street lamps, it feels like progress. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
He had forgotten to fight for other people's happiness, too embroiled in his own. He let Dr. Erskine's words slip from his mind. The serum, this life, his strength - it's a privilege, and a responsibility.

He can not let it waste away, not even for love, not even for Bucky.

He calls Phil on Monday and asks to be put on a plane. There are bases in Bosnia, and he needs to do his duty. Over eggs benedict, he tells Bucky.

“I need to say somethin’,” he starts, swallowing around his mouthful. “These are really good, by the way. Where did you learn to cook like this?”

“Cooking channel,” Bucky says from where he is focussed intensely on flipping pancakes. “There’s like a whole channel just for cooking. They showed this thing with cakes that I might try.”

“That sounds amazing, Buck,” Steve says. Therapy is going well, and Bucky’s been advised to find something that is soothing. He’s taken over the cooking and baking. Steve’s eaten more cupcakes in the last month than he’s eaten in his entire life.

“Whatcha wanna tell me?”

“Phil’s sending me to Bosnia,” he says trying to keep his voice light. “Overnight mission, I will be back tomorrow.”

Bucky goes carefully still, and Steve watches him trying to control his breathing. It looks, for a moment, like Steve is about to watch him phase into the Soldier, but after a couple of minutes, Bucky looks up at him again with his clear eyes.

“I am fine,” he answers Steve’s silent question. “Just - Yasha doesn’t like the idea of being separated from you, but he will pipe down.”

“I will be back soon.”

“Be careful, you punk.”

“Will you be alright here on your own?”

“Natalia and I are going to a pottery class.”

Steve is rubbish at hiding his feelings, especially when it is selfish, shameful, unrighteous jealousy. His face feels hot. It is too much to hope that Bucky wouldn’t catch something like that.  
“Oh, Stevie,” he says, and Steve hates the pity he hears.

“I mean - it’s nothing,” he backtracks. “Don’t worry about it. It will - it’s fine - I can deal -”

“You were never very bright,” Bucky’s voice is full of mirth. “Very easy on the eyes, but not especially bright.”

Steve flushes.

“She understands,” Bucky continues. “She understands a part of me that I am too ashamed for you to see.”

“I - it’s - I am sorry.”

“Something Peggy told me once,” Bucky says, and Steve looks up, surprised at the segue. “She said if I stared daggers at her any harder, I will get squint eyed.”

Steve laughs.

“We’re always going to be jealous bastards,” Bucky says. “But believe me when I tell you sweetheart, that you’re it for me. Love of my life, you are.”

Steve blinks away the wetness in his eyes.

“I love you, Bucky.”

“Love you too, punk,” he smiles, his happiness lighting up the entire room. “Finish your damn eggs.”

 

 

 

 

Steve hadn’t realized how much he’d needed to punch something until he got his boots on the ground in Bosnia.

It felt really, really good.

Back in their makeshift HQ now, Steve sits across from Phil and listens to Tony rant about HYDRA.

“I swear to God, I am going to raze them to the ground.”

“You are taking this pretty personally,” Phil observes, voicing Steve’s silent question.

“They are copying my tech,” Tony says enraged. “Of course I am mad! They are copying my tech for making the world go boom. I take that personally. Of course I take that personally! I nearly destroyed my company in pulling out of the weapons business. Phil, they killed my family.”

“About that -” Steve interrupts, but Tony cuts him off.

“Oh pipe down, Rogers,” he snaps. “I know it wasn’t your Terminator’s fault. I was the one to find the files on their cognitive recalibration methods. Barnes was brainwashed to the margins of neural destruction. The man hasn’t made a consensual decision in decades, probably.”

The possibility that the winter soldier’s violent passion for Steve might not even be his own, but might stem from observed violence of Hydra’s handlers makes Steve want to throw up. He suppresses the urge to run from the conference room and stand under a shower. Phil’s compassionate glance says he knows exactly what Steve is thinking.

“First Romania, then Russia, and now Bosnia,” Tony is still speaking. “Phil, we need to look into the remaining leads.”

“Agreed,” Phil says. “I have Natasha checking her contacts. We should have something soon. You alright, Captain?”

Steve sighs. He didn’t think he was obvious.

“What’s the point, even?” he says, and Tony looks genuinely freaked out. “No matter what I do, I can’t give Bucky seventy years back.”

He barely registers Tony dropping into a chair, like his strings have been cut.

“Cap,” Tony says, his voice weak. “Don’t do that. Don’t be like that. You’re freaking me out. Captain America can’t lose heart.”

“Captain America can go take a hike for a while,” Steve snaps. “I am going to go punch something.”

Tony opens his mouth, but Phil stops him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s alright,” Phil says kindly. “Get out of here. I will find you if we find out anything new.”

Steve stays in the gym, punishing a punching bag until he can’t physically stand up anymore.

 

 

 

 

There are flowers waiting for him on the kitchen counter. They are roses, long stemmed, lush, brightest of bright red; a thick bouquet just sitting conspicuously in a long, crystal vase.

Steve doesn't recognize the vase. He didn't think he owned any.

The vase is patterned, the crystal textured on the sides and throwing light patterns on the counter top.

He reaches for the card beside the vase - "You're beautiful, sweetheart."

His heart is beating too loud in his chest, and his legs give out under him. He sinks down on the stool, hands clasping the edge of the counter tight, knuckles white. His breathing is coming too fast, and he can't stop it, for a moment, he is certain that he is about to have his first panic attack since the serum.

Slowly, like Bucky used to do, he puts one palm over his chest and just listens to his heartbeat, taking deep breaths.

Calm down, he tells himself. It's just flowers.

God, he is a mess. He is a broken mess.

His boyfriend fucking him raw and dry and tearing into him seems fine and dandy. When the same boyfriend buys him flowers, he has a fucking panic attack. Could he be any more broken?

The roses are utterly beautiful, and they sit innocently on the counter top. He runs the side of his thumb over the petals, feeling the softness against his skin.

_"Wildflowers?" Steve asked in the middle of nowhere. It's the first break of spring somewhere deep in Germany, and they are camped for the evening. In the distance, the sound of crackling fire and of the boys singing around a camp is audible. Steve is lying on a worn mattress in their tent, and Bucky is lying on top of him, pressing kisses down his sternum. "You picked wildflowers in the middle of Nazi Germany."_

_"Dunno what you're complainin' for," Bucky says. "Can't a fella get his fella some flowers?"_

_"We were in enemy territory."_

_"We aren't anymore," Bucky says, biting into Steve's hipbone. Steve gasps, trying to focus on his point._

_"You're such a sap."_

_"I see something beautiful, I think of you, sweetheart," he drawls, tongue now dipping into the hollow at Steve's hip. "When we're back, I will do it right. Proper like. Buy you the most precious roses money can buy. Red ones to match those pretty lips of yours, after you've bitten them bloody trying not to scream my name. When you pretend like I am not giving it to you good. Red roses, you just wait."_

_"Buck."_

_"Say my name again."_

_"Bucky."_

_"So beautiful."_

If Bucky is keeping his promises six decades on, Steve thinks there’s maybe hope for them yet. He just sits there with his flowers, weeping into his hands, desperately hoping for a return to things past.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Bucky’s gentle voice startles him badly enough to make him jump.

“Oh, it’s you,” he sniffs into his shoulder, trying to wipe the tear tracks away. He turns on the rotating stool to face Bucky.

“It seems that I am always doing that,” Bucky says, voice smooth but heavy with sorrow. “Trying to make you happy but only managing to hurt you. I am sorry.”

“You didn’t,” Steve corrects. “They’re lovely. Thank you.”

They stare at each other for a minute longer, Steve on his seat, Bucky standing and looking at him like he can’t believe Steve exists.

“You just going to stand there and stare at me like a creeper?” Steve asks with a watery chuckle. At this point, he’s given up wiping his eyes.

He meant the question as a joke, but Bucky looks like he is giving it some serious consideration. Steve pays attention, because Bucky has that expression which means he is gearing himself up to do something extremely brave and reckless.

Slowly, with extreme gentleness, he reaches with his flesh arm to tip Steve’s chin up. Electricity courses through where Bucky’s fingertips brush against Steve’s chin, and he can’t believe this is happening, this is the first time Buck’s touched him in six decades and Steve can barely hold in the sob, the tears fall when -

Bucky leans closer and brushes his lips against Steve’s, gentle, oh so gentle, his lips dry and chapped and heavy against Steve’s, very politely insistent; and Steve’s groan is answer enough, combined as it is with his sob - he can’t seem to stop; god, Bucky’s kissing him for the first time in years and Steve is a crying mess -

He opens his mouth and Buck slips in, tongue probing, familiar and yet so strange, and Steve’s scared to throw his arms around Bucky’s shoulders, unsure of his standing, of how much he can ask when Buck’s given so much already. So he grabs the edge of the stool he is sitting on, fingers clasping tight and trying to keep still, trying to kiss Bucky, trying to memorize this, the shape of his lips and the warmth of his mouth when -

When Bucky pulls away, and his expression is dazed, like he’s stunned at himself for doing that.

“Buck,” Steve moans, and it comes out desperate, his throat is clogged up and more tears make their way down his cheeks. God, the Winter Soldier did not get this response. The Soldier nearly destroyed him every night, left him bloody and bruised in the most intimate places, and some nights, Steve barely felt anything.

All Bucky did was kiss him gently, and Steve feels like his heart’s been through a marathon, he can’t control his breathing, he can’t stop the tears.

Bucky reaches into his trouser pocket and comes out with a white handkerchief, and Steve laughs despite himself. Always a gentleman, that Barnes. He wipes his eyes and hands it back, and their fingers brush against each other, and he thinks, for now, this is enough.

 

 

~ finis ~

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you like reading stories about heroes like James Barnes, or Steve Rogers; make it count. Take 2 minutes today to donate to the  
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